Semua Bab The Mafia's Thirteenth Bride : Bab 11 - Bab 20

IvyI woke up to sunlight and the smell of antiseptic.My head throbbed. My hands burned. My whole body felt like someone had filled it with sand.I blinked at the ceiling. White. High. Familiar.I was back in the room. The one I'd climbed out of."No," I whispered."You're awake."I turned my head. Too fast. The room spun.Dorian sat in a chair by the window. He looked different. Tired. Dark circles under his eyes. His suit was rumpled.Had he been there all night?"What happened?" I asked."You climbed out a window. Ran through the garden. Passed out by the fountain." His voice was flat. Controlled. "You don't remember?"I thought about it. The door handle turning. The tree branch. The grass. The moon.The hands on my shoulders."You carried me back," I said."I carried you back.""Why?"He didn't answer. Just stared at me with those gray eyes. Unreadable. Cold.But something behind them was different. Something I couldn't name."The doctor found sedatives in your system," he said.

IvySofia Reyes arrived at noon.I knew because I heard her before I saw her. Boots on marble. The kind of footsteps that belonged to someone who had never been told to walk quietly.She appeared in my doorway without knocking, without announcing herself, without any of the polite social rituals I had learned to expect from strangers."You must be Ivy," she said.I pressed myself against the headboard. My hands found the blanket and pulled it up to my chin like it could protect me."I'm Sofia. Dorian sent me." She walked into the room without waiting for an invitation. She was tall, sharp, with dark hair pulled back in a tight ponytail and eyes that missed nothing. "Get dressed. We start in ten minutes.""Start what?"She looked at me like I had asked a stupid question."Self defense. You're the thirteenth wife of a mafia lord. People want you dead. Dorian wants you alive." She shrugged. "I'm the one who makes sure that happens."She left before I could respond.I sat in bed for a ful

IvyI could not sleep.The bed was too soft. The blankets were too warm. The room was too quiet. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Mrs Chen's face. The way she had looked at me through the crack in the kitchen door. The way her eyes had gleamed in the darkness. The way she had smiled when she thought I could not see her.I lay in bed for an hour. Then two hours. Then three.At midnight, I gave up.I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood up. The floor was cold under my bare feet. The moonlight came through the window, pale and silver, painting shapes on the walls.I opened my door and stepped into the hallway.The mansion was different at night. The shadows were deeper. The silence was heavier. The portraits on the walls seemed to watch me as I walked past them. Twelve women in white dresses. Twelve dead brides. Twelve pairs of eyes that followed me down the hall.I walked slowly, my hand trailing along the wall, my eyes memorizing everything. Every door. Every painting. Ev

IvyI stared at Dorian, waiting for him to say something. The file was still open in my hands. The witness statement was right there. The schedule was right there. Mrs Chen had Thursdays off. The brides died on Thursdays. When she switched her day off, the bride died on a different day. It was not complicated. It was not random. It was a pattern.But Dorian was shaking his head."No," he said."What do you mean no?""I mean no. It is a coincidence."I stared at him. "A coincidence? Twelve women died on the same day Mrs Chen had off. That is not a coincidence. That is evidence."He stood up, walked to the other side of the room and ran a hand through his hair. His back was to me. His shoulders were tight."Mrs Chen has been with me since I was born," he said. "She was there when I took my first steps. She was there when I said my first words. She was there when my father..." He stopped. Took a breath. "She is practically my second mother.""Dorian.""She bandaged my cuts. She stayed up

IvyMrs Chen did not move from the bed.She just sat there with her hands folded in her lap and her silver hair pinned up neatly and her eyes that were not kind or gentle or anything I had seen before."Close the door, child," she said.I did not want to close the door. I wanted to run. I wanted to scream. I wanted to find Dorian and tell him that the woman he trusted was sitting on my bed like she owned the room.But my feet would not move. My hands would not move. My mouth would not open.Mrs Chen sighed. It was a soft sound. Almost sad."I said close the door."I reached behind me and pushed the door closed. The click echoed through the room."Good." Mrs Chen patted the bed beside her. "Sit."I did not sit.Mrs Chen's eyes hardened. Just a little. Just enough."I have been nothing but kind to you since you arrived," she said. Her voice was calm. Hurt. Like a mother scolding a child who had been misbehaving. "I have made you meals. I have cleaned your room. I have brought you tea ev